


Panic! At The Day Show

by Project7723



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Annie Montrose is Out of Her Depth, But She is Nothing if not Adaptable, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mark and Annie being palsies, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26561371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project7723/pseuds/Project7723
Summary: Annie Montrose's pre-press tour briefing did not include a section on what do to with world-famous astronauts hyperventilating on the floor of the men's room, but she'll do her best.
Relationships: Annie Montrose & Mark Watney
Comments: 17
Kudos: 147





	Panic! At The Day Show

**Author's Note:**

> You know it's not mine. You do.
> 
> I'm...honestly not sure if this is based more on the book or the movie (or the sheer amount of post-Mars fanfics I've consumed)? But if you're unfamiliar with one or the other and something is confusing to you, blame me for not sticking to one source.

"So—and I think this is the question we've all been waiting for—Mars. What was it like?"

"Well, ah—they don't call it the red planet for nothing. I never wanna see red again. Or orange." Watney scratched his cheek. "Or potatoes."

The TV host and the audience chuckled.

Watching the interview on a screen off-stage, Annie Montrose smiled. Watney was doing well. There was a reason he had been appointed the PR man for Ares III—his easy charm and dry humor won over any audience. The man was practically impossible not to like.

Unless, of course, you were the unfortunate soul in charge of babysitting him. Which, for the next two weeks, happened to be her. Press tours, yay!

It wasn't that Watney was bad company. Boiled down, she liked Watney as much as the next person. He was a great guy—easygoing, funny, and just generally...nice. In everyday conversation, they got along like old pals; it was only in front of the cameras that he threatened to give her bleeding ulcers.

Before Mars, Watney had been prone to break the rules where the press was involved, broaching subjects that were uncomfortable for the good folks at NASA—and more specifically Annie herself—to deal with later, swearing up a storm on Jimmy Kimmel Live, discussing controversial politics on Larry Myers, et cetera. This was his first press junket since his return (it had only taken six months, but NASA—again, Annie—had finally badgered him to a breaking point), and it seemed things had only gotten worse. Apparently, a year and a half of following your own rules after NASA abandoned you on an alien planet didn't do a lot for your respect for said space program—or rules.

But today? Today Watney was being a good boy. It was nearly four PM, his eighth interview of the day, and he had not so much as said "dang." She would have to reward him later. Ice cream, or something. She thought she remembered his mentioning something about liking rocky road, once. Everyone liked rocky road, right?

Annie's attention was drawn back to the interview by the fact that no one was talking. That could bode only ill for any live interview. On the screen, the TV host was smiling stiffly, her eyes not-so-subtly trying to give Watney his cue. For his part, Watney just seemed frozen, staring, unblinking, at something over the TV host's shoulder. Annie had an inkling that what he was actually seeing was on another planet altogether.

This was bad. This was very, very bad. _Come on, Watney. Snap out of it!_ Someone behind her mumbled, "What's up with him?" and Annie shot him a withering look before turning back to the screen and willing Watney to come around.

The host waved her hand in front of Watney's face. "Earth to Mark." Annie rolled her eyes. _Some taste, lady._ "You okay in there?" A nervous laugh trickled from the audience.

Watney blinked and shifted in his seat. He looked disoriented for barely a moment before flashing an apologetic grin. "Sorry, Tanya, what was the question?"

 _Attaboy._ It wasn't great, but it was salvageable.

The host tapped her cue cards on the table to straighten them, then set them aside. "You know, I, uh, can't remember. Let's go ahead and open it up to questions from the audience."

Had she not been wearing six-inch Prada's, Annie's toes would have been curling. Nothing wracked her nerves as much as these segments—at least with press conferences she held the reins. Here, the folks asking questions were just everyday people, not ravenous vultures out for blood and a scoop, but she had no control over what they would ask or the manner in which Watney would answer them. Absolutely none. So she offered up a silent prayer and braced herself.

The first person up was a young man, probably in college, eyes wide and voice trembling with nerves when he spoke, asking how Watney had navigated the dust storm he encountered on his way to the Ares IV site. Annie nodded in approval as Watney explained in terms that could be easily understood without a Ph.D. or five.

The next one up was a little girl, maybe eight, wearing a NASA t-shirt that been worn long beyond its usefulness to thrift stores. Annie felt her lips curl into a smile. This was good. Very good. A little girl getting to meet her hero? The press would have a field day—and for once it would actually be good PR.

Watney was smiling, too, but she doubted his reasons were as calculated as hers were.

"Hi, Dr. Watney." Her front teeth were missing, and she lisped.

"Hi. What's your name?"

"Melissa." She looked at her feet, crossing one tiny converse-clad toe over the other.

Watney feigned amazement, throwing himself back in his chair and splaying hand over his chest. "No way! Melissa? That's so cool! Melissa is my commander's name.

Melissa grinned. "I know. I'm gonna be a space commander too, someday."

"Oh, yeah?" Watney glanced at the host. "Can I—? Let me just—one second." He stood and crossed the stage, kneeling before Melissa. He gave her a fist bump.

Annie's smile broadened. This was great. Watney's voice was soft when he spoke, and Annie knew his words were meant only for Melissa's ears, but she was glad his lapel mic picked them up anyway.

"You study the stars?"

She nodded. "My dad set up a telescope for me, too."

"Yeah? That's awesome. Just wait till you see the stars from space. Just wait till you see Earth. Nothing like it, anywhere. You can be a great commander, Melissa. You're gonna have to work really hard to get there, but it'll be so worth it. I think you can make it."

And then Melissa flung her arms around Watney's neck, and Annie smiled a smile that had absolutely nothing to do with public relations. And if she teared up a little, well, everyone else's vision was too blurry to notice, anyway.

When Melissa pulled away, Watney seemed to remember that not only is he in a room full of people, but on live TV, and he sheepishly returned to his chair. "Shoot! I interrupted you. I'm sorry, Melissa, did you have a question?"

"Did you get lonely when you were on Mars?"

And just like that, all the good vibes vanished with all the aplomb of helium escaping a wayward balloon. Annie bit her lip. She had been made aware—multiple times, by each member of the Ares III crew and each of Watney's doctors, respectively—of the fact that loneliness was a trigger for Watney.

But he just closed his eyes and nodded. Then he offered Melissa a sad smile. "Yeah. I did get pretty lonely sometimes. I missed my team and my parents, especially." Then Annie saw a glint in his eye that she knew all too well. "Hey, Melissa, when you're a commander, make sure all your crew is onboard the ascent vehicle before you take off."

The audience chuckled, Melissa waved at Watney as she returned to her seat, and the next person approached the mic. Uh-oh. It was a Karen.

"Hi, Dr. Watney. My name's Linda Miller, and I was a member of the #LeaveHimThere campaign. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the cost and risk to benefit ratios might have been too high to be worth one man's life?"

Annie stiffened, and the host looked at her guest nervously. Watney looked like he had been slapped, but he recovered quickly.

"Every day."

There was a tense hush as everyone waited for him to elaborate, but when it became clear that he did not intend to, the host turned back to the woman behind the mic. "Thank you. Next."

But Linda did not step away, taking it one step further. "Do you think it would have been better if you died? Did you ever want to?"

The studio went abuzz with gasps and whispered exclamations. The TV host looked like she had swallowed a fly, but when no words came out of Watney's open mouth, she quickly plastered on a smile. "I'm so sorry to cut you off, but we are actually out of time. Thank you to everyone who tuned in, thank you to our audience, and special thanks to Dr. Mark Watney for joining us today."

Applause erupted, the cameras cut, and Mark Watney bolted from the stage. His face was sallow and sweaty when he brushed past Annie and disappeared around a corner. "Watney? Watney!" She was about to follow then someone took her arm and she turned to see the host standing there, eyes full of concern behind false lashes.

"Is he okay? I'm so sorry, we tried to screen the questions beforehand...I don't know how she got in there."

Annie swallowed her irritation and plastered on what she hoped looked like a genuine smile. "That's okay. He'll be fine. He's Mark. Excuse me." She turned and strode after Watney, praying he hadn't left the building.

She scanned the backstage halls as she walked, looking for any sign of the astronaut in question, but she saw only guests and crew scurrying about to prepare for the next segment. Her anxiety mounted with each face her eyes landed on that wasn't Watney's.

Then the faint sound of retching reached her ears and she stopped, looking for the source. It had to be either Watney or the pregnant actress she had seen earlier. A door opened to her left, and a man walked out, face scrunched in disgust. The retching was louder for a moment before the door swung closed again to reveal the men's restroom sign. Watney, then.

She intercepted the man who had just exited, snagging his arm with a ferocity that clearly started him. "Is there anyone in there?"

"What?"

"The bathroom. Is there anyone in there?"

"Yeah, there's—some guy's in there puking his guts out."

"No, I know that. Is there anyone _else_."

"Uh—I don't know, I don't—I don't think so."

She released his arm and approached the door, pushing it open a little.

"Hey, lady, you can't go in there!"

She turned and leveled the hapless man with a glare that had been known to make even the almighty Teddy Sanders submit to her will. Sure enough, the man raised his hands and backtracked down the hall. She turned back towards the door, poking her head inside. The retching had been replaced by a sort of breathless, hiccuping sound. "Watney?"

The sound stopped.

She stepped inside fully, pulling the door closed and crouching carefully to see beneath the stall doors. They all appeared to be empty save for the handicap-accessible stall against the wall. She stepped past the other two and knocked on the occupied stall's door. "Watney? Are you in there?"

Silence.

"Come on, Watney."

A beat, then, "Go away."

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Mark? You are not a moody fourteen-year-old, and I am not your mother trying to stage an intervention. Let me in."

Another pause.

She waited.

His voice was muffled when it came. "It's not locked. I didn't have time, before—it's not locked."

She pulled gently, and sure enough, it swung outward to reveal a rather pathetic sight.

Mark Watney—astronaut, space pirate, the man who colonized Mars, the fastest person in the history of space travel—was huddled on the floor by the toilet, back pressed against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, face buried in his arms, shaking uncontrollably, and Annie Montrose—former-renowned Times reporter, two-time winner of the Pulitzer, now head of NASA's prestigious public relations department, a woman with a reputation for thinking on her feet—had no idea what to do. She stood there, at a loss, feeling more under-prepared than she ever had in her life.

Then he mumbled a soft "I'm sorry" into his arms and she found herself maneuvering to sit primly next to him on the filthy tile floor. "Don't be. Flashback?" she questioned, figuring the first thing was to identify the problem. It was a few moments before he nodded, arms tightening around his knees. She nodded, trying to remember what the team had told her to do in case of flashbacks. "Are you, uh—are you still in it?"

Another brief wait, another brief nod.

"Okay. We'll deal with it." If only she could remember how…

Vogel had sent her a (not-so) helpful email with a link to the German folk song he had often hummed to Watney when he had attacks aboard the Hermes. Well, that wasn't going to happen.

 _"Talk to him,"_ Beck had said. _"Remind him that he's not alone."_

Annie took a deep breath. "Can you hear me, Mark?"

Very softly, "Yes."

"Okay. Good, that's good. I'm right here, okay? We'll sit this out together, yeah?"

  
Lewis's words ran through her mind. _"Tell him where he is. Sometimes if he can feel what's around him, it brings him out."_

Annie thought for a moment, then, on an impulse, she grabbed the hand that was nearest, prying it free of his knee and gripping it tightly. "Feel that? That's me." She rubbed her other hand over the rough skin on his knuckles. "See? I'm real. I'm right here." Pulling his hand up to the sleeve of her coat, she pressed it there, only moderately surprised when he tangled his fingers in it and held it tight. "That's right. There you go. That's my polyester blazer that you said made me look like a smurf with a Chanel subscription." She pried his hand free and held it to the floor. He jumped a little at the sudden cold, but then he began to rub his fingertips against the smooth surface. "And this? You're gonna want to wash your hands after this one, pal. This is the freezing tile floor of the backstage bathroom we're squatting in like crazy people." She twined their fingers together again and brought their hands to rest in her lap. He squeezed hers tightly and she went back to rubbing her hands over his knuckles.

 _"Hugs,"_ had been the advice from Johansson, and Martinez had nodded, adding, _"Hold that boy like your life depends on it, and don't let go until he does."_

No one would ever call Annie Montrose a touchy-feely person, but she supposed she could make an exception in this case. Scooting on her bum, she moved until her side was pressed rather stiffly against his trembling frame. When he made no protest, she relaxed, allowing herself to slouch into him. She tried to pull her hand free so she could wrap her arm around his shoulders, but his grip was suddenly vice-like around her fingers. "Hey, hey, hey. It's okay. Here," she offered her other hand, "take this one. I'm just gonna move my arm, okay?" She withdrew her hand and quickly replaced it with her right, drawing him close with her arm across his back.

She sat still for a few minutes, listening with concern to his rapid, ragged breaths. After some internal-debating, she began to rub her hand, firm and steady, back and forth, over his shoulder blades. It must've been comforting to some degree, because she felt some of the rigidity begin to slide out of his muscles, but his breathing was still alarmingly fast.

Then a thought struck her. "Mark? There's plenty of air. Lots of oxygen. Some nitrogen. A little carbon dioxide. Argo. The perfect blend, and plenty of it. Take a deep breath for me?"

He tried, sucking in as much as he could before it was squeezed away on his exhale and he had to start all over again.

"Try to let it out slow. There you go, that's better."

It took several minutes and a lot of coaching, but eventually, his breathing began to even out. At some point, his head had found its way to her shoulder and her hand moved up to card through his hair. They sat that way until a cramp in Annie's leg made itself known, and she realized she had been repeating the same phrases of reassurance for who knew how long. "You're okay. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. You're okay."

Apparently, the hard floor was effecting Watney, too, because he shifted against her.

She squeezed his shoulder as he began to sit up. "You with me?"

He avoided her eyes, staring at a spot of tile between his feet. "Yeah. I'm—sorry. Sorry about that." He tried to pass it off with a laugh but she frowned.

"Not your fault, Watney."

He shrugged, resting his face on his arms and taking a shaky breath. "Maybe, but you didn't sign up for this. I—"

"Watney, I swear if you apologize to me one more time I will stick your face in that filthy commode and give you a swirly you'll never forget."

His head came up at that, eyes full of surprise and just a little of the self-assured Watney she was accustomed to. Then he took on a look of exaggerated outrage. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try me."

A brief but intense staring contest ensued, which she would have won had they not been interrupted by the sound of the restroom door swinging open, swiftly followed by the occupation of the stall directly next to them. Annie's eyes went wide as she thrust her face into her elbow to stifle her laughter as the full absurdity of their situation hit her. She felt Mark shaking against her and a glance in his direction confirmed she wasn't alone.

It felt like forever before their unsuspecting neighbor exited and their laughter rushed free like water from a burst dam.

"We should probably get out of here," Watney sputtered.

"Yeah," she gasped in agreement.

She had almost managed to collect herself when Mark let out a snort.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry, I just—it’s argon.”

“What?”

“Earlier, you were talking about air and you said oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and argo. Argon is a gas that makes up part of Earth’s atmosphere. _Argo_ is a Ben Affleck movie.”

“Oh.” It was Annie’s turn to snort. “As a NASA employee, I should probably know that.”

Mark shrugged. “I don’t know, they didn’t quiz me on Ben Affleck flicks when I joined up. Although, our flight instructor did forever ruin _Armageddon_ for me.”

She stared at him incredulously for a full fifteen seconds before she realized he was joking and burst into yet another fit of unladylike giggles.

After a minute or two, a quiet fell over them, laughter fading to grave silence. Watney stared at his shoes as Annie studied a suspicious stain on the wall opposite. The moment felt like when your feet suddenly hit the ground as you swim to shore—all you have to do is stand and walk out, but somehow it feels like you're stuck, legs forgetting their original purpose after so long in the water.

Well, she could at least make sure Watney didn't have to stagger out on his own. She offered her hand. "Ready?"

He eyed her hand apprehensively for a long moment before he set his jaw and clasped it. "Ready."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, lovely soul.


End file.
